Great Escape Publishing

Posted January 9th, 2016 by Lisa Top & filed under Travel Photography.

I’ve always been a shutterbug with a camera for as long as I can remember. So much so that I annoyed my friends whenever we’d go out. To them, I was ruining the mood. To me, I was taking memories. Many years later, I’m working on making my photography my hobby and career (which makes work a more pleasant experience).

About a month after launching my photography website, I showed it to one of my friends. He stumbled across a picture I had taken of a peacock. His aunt loved peacocks and he thought it would make a great birthday gift.

He asked how much it would cost to get it printed out. That was when I showed him the metal print of the one I did for myself as well as some other peacocks I had shot from various events: one from a wedding in LA, another from one of the Everglades Parks in Florida, and a third one that I can’t even recall… I just love shooting peacocks! They’re such naturally vibrant, photogenic birds…

My friend was sold: he wanted all of them printed on metal!

There are a number of companies that will produce metal photo prints. Since I was trying to get a side business going, I wanted to get more profit than cost, so I went on Groupon to try different companies.

One company was super-cheap but it took over 9 weeks to get the print (and it showed up damaged). Then they quoted another 3 weeks to get the replacement.

Another I tried turned out pretty well and delivered in 2 weeks.

It’s a good idea (so you can get more profit) to try Groupon and test different printing companies. But sometimes, you get what you pay for: a long wait, not-so-great-printing, and then poor customer service.

In the end, my favorite company to work with was: Picture It On Canvas. They were fast, always on Groupon, and they do great work!

The total sale was $750, and my profit after printing and shipping was $520. Pretty good for the start of a side business. I have a good feeling about 2016.

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